


Warmth and Light

by hobbitdragon



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Canon timelines ignored or altered, Consentacles, Fix-It, Fluff and Smut, Here Lies the Abyss rewrite, M/M, Oral Sex, Other, Symbiotic Relationship, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, The Blight (Dragon Age), Warden Alistair, brief angst, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-12 19:51:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16002107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: So, imagine the entire Warden plotline of DA:I got turned into a fix-it AU featuring the softest possible tentacle monster. This is that fic.





	Warmth and Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luffymarra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luffymarra/gifts).



> Thank you to both Z and ChocoChipBiscuit for beta-reading!!
> 
> When I say in the tags that canon timelines have been ignored or altered, I mean that I didn't even try to fit this fic anywhere in the actual in-game order of things. If you're looking for a flawlessly canon-adherent fic, this isn't it. It changes the outcome of one of the major quest-lines of the game and ignores the timing of everything else in ways that maybe don't make a lot of sense if you think about them too hard. So don't! Just enjoy the tentacles and the fluff.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING: this fic includes references to canonically intense topics, including one brief mention of Alistair's childhood neglect/emotional abuse. It also involves the depiction of a symbiotic relationship between nonhuman creatures and humans. If you're extremely sensitive to body horror/the physical interface between life forms, this fic may be uncomfortable to read. But in case you're concerned, I set out to make this as soft as possible and I like to hope I achieved that. This is not meant to be creepy or scary.

Nothing seemed real as Alistair returned to the camp he shared with the weird, dragon-loving Orlesian. Alistair’s body felt both unreal and completely gelatinous, all wobbly and foreign to touch. The frost-enchanted chainmail he wore couldn’t be real either, because it had cost nearly all of Alistair’s savings, and even now that his decision to buy it had been proven _right,_ his conscience still screeched about what a stupid expenditure it had been.

That Alistair was still alive and the boiling heat of the Abyssal Rift hadn’t killed him (because of said enchanted armor, shut up conscience) clearly wasn’t real either, because Fréderic said the Rift reached temperatures guaranteed to kill even life forms designed to live in a sunlit oven like the Western Approach. (Which Alistair certainly was not. He missed the rain and fog of Fereldan, thank you very much, even if he didn’t miss marching with wet boots.) Even now, late into the night, the endless sand still baked his feet and got stuck in everything. Which, okay, maybe the _sand_ was real because Alistair didn’t think he was imagining the exact terrible texture of it caught in the sweat of his asscrack. But nothing else was real _beyond_ that.

Moreso than anything else about this whole mad situation, the thing in Alistair’s pack _could not be real._ He hadn’t seen it in several hours during his walk back to camp and out of the Rift, so perhaps the thing had stopped existing in the interim. He couldn’t decide if he wanted that to be the case or not.

But the....presence....in the back of his mind told Alistair that he had very much _not_ imagined any of the last few hours. Just like he hadn’t imagined the last few months, hearing the Calling non-stop, the Wardens turning to blood magic and demons and Alistair fleeing their ranks, the rise of Corypheus and the fall of Haven, the dreams, the voice in Alistair’s head telling him to go out into the Abyssal Rift--

But look on the bright side, he told himself: there was no real way for the situation to get worse, which meant the only direction to go anymore was up! When one had reached the point of having spent nearly all of one’s savings to go on a quest with a high likelihood of leaving one’s corpse as a dessicated heap of skin and bones in the Abyssal Rift after every friend one has had for the last ten years has chased one away from the Order to which one has devoted one’s entire life....well, Alistair lost track of the pronouns at that point, having always been confused by using ‘one’ that way. But the point was, things had been Very Bad, and now he at least had something to show for it. Theoretically. Assuming this thing wasn’t a demon.

 _We are not a demon,_ the thing in his pack told him in his own damn head.

“How would I know?” Alistair asked, turning up the tent flap and ducking inside. He laid the pack down very, very carefully by his bedroll, and then set to removing the chilly enchanted chainmail (try saying that ten times fast, he thought). Once it was off and Alistair sat in his leggings and tunic, he turned to the pack.

The thing inside had pre-empted him, a small tendril peeping out of the top of the leather satchel, glowing like a lamp made from mother-of-pearl. Alistair bit his lip at the sight of it.

 _If a demon were to attempt to get control of you, it would offer you something you want,_ the thing said. _You very clearly do not want any of this, so we would be a very poor demon._

“And yet here I am, which says something about me,” Alistair sighed, gripping his knees with sweaty hands. He fumbled for the canteen he’d left by the bedside. After a long drink of water, Alistair shakily nodded his head. “All right then. Time we had a serious talk.”

 _Time you let us help you, you mean,_ the thing told him.

“Really not selling me on the whole ‘not a demon’ idea when you phrase it like that,” Alistair told it, but he brought the pack into his lap and opened it up. He winced away from the contents, though, which shone bright enough that it hurt to look at until his eyes adjusted. “Also I need to give you a name or something. I can’t keep calling you ‘the thing in my backpack.’”

 _I suppose,_ the thing in his backpack admitted, sounding reluctant. _We have never needed a name before._

“Well now you’re out in the world and entering society like a beautiful ingenue, so you need one,” Alistair told it firmly. “How about _Diamant,_ since I’m being hosted by an Orlesian? Cost me more than a diamond would have to get to you, and you are very shiny.”

 _If you insist,_ Diamant said with what Alistair thought was bad grace. Tentatively, he reached into the pack, letting it wrap several of its arms around his hand so he could lift it out from the leather. Once it was out, he cradled the heavy weight in his arms, forcing himself not to flinch at the multitude of warm, squirming touches against his belly and hands. The arms were also sort of sticky. Which meant he already wanted to wash his hands, because yuck. But at least it smelled sweet. A little bit like roses, actually.  

“So,” Alistair continued, swallowing down his anxiety. His mouth was dry again already, he hated the desert. Years ago he’d bitterly disliked the time he’d spent posted at Griffon Wing Keep and had taken the first assignment that had offered to get him away. This place wasn't any better now. “How....how exactly are you going to purge me of the taint?”

_We will need to attach ourselves to you for some weeks, to filter the Blight out of your body._

“So you want to ride around inside me. Like a demon.”

_On you, not inside you. Only our roots would need to be internal._

“Really, _really_ not selling me on this,” Alistair repeated. But then, compared to his situation right now, even if Diamant was a demon, how much worse could life as an abomination really be? He’d barely slept in months, the Calling now so omnipresent that he could hardly think. And he was losing weight at an alarming pace thanks to the travel it had taken to get here, the effort of hiding from his fellow Wardens, and all the miserable nights lying awake listening to the Archdemon’s song. If the pollution in his veins didn’t kill him, madness would, or simple sleep deprivation. “So, what, am I just supposed to walk around with a big glowing tentacle-beast coming out of my mouth for Maker-knows how long? How am I supposed to eat?

 _Your back would be a suitable place for us to put down roots,_ Diamant told him, and Alistair grimaced. _Or your chest. You will need to be able to eat and function as normal, of course._

“Riiiiight, of course, I should have known! And if I let you--ugh, what am I saying, yikes--if I let you put down _roots,_ into my _actual body,_ how is that supposed to help me?”

 _We feed upon the Blight,_ it told him again, just as it had from a distance for weeks. _We can grow in or on anything, including a living body, and leave it unharmed when we finish._

“So you’ve done this before.”

_No, but it is what we are made for, and we know how we work. Our roots will not harm you._

“Just what a demon would say.” He pitched his voice down in an impression of a demon. “Sure, Alistair, we’ll just grow a tentacle garden from your chest, but it won’t hurt and then you won’t die of the taint! No worries!” He shook his head. “And why do you keep saying ‘we’ and ‘us’ anyway? I only had room to take one of you.”

_What you took out of the Rift is a part of us in the same way a single finger is a part of you. We are all of one mind, and parts of a whole._

Alistair wrinkled his nose.

“So I won’t just be letting _you_ put roots in me. I’ll be letting your whole _species_ do it. Ugh.”

 _If you won’t do it, then find another Warden who will,_ Diamant told him. _They are desperate. We have felt their fear and we have felt Corypheus. Someday, if you allowed us, we could purge even him, and leave him no more than human._

Alistair stared into the shape in his arms, trying to tell himself that a demon wouldn’t talk this way. Except he knew a demon could: there was very little in life that he wanted more than an end to Corypheus, to the Calling, to the Blight. And the betrayed part of him was ready to be done with the Wardens, too. They took ten years from him and then tried to have him killed just for talking sense! And he was so tired, had been for a long time, but a Warden’s duty was never over till he died. Alistair just wanted to rest.

A small, miserable part of Alistair wondered if Duncan would have agreed with Clarel. Duncan had never been one to flinch from the ugliest necessities of being a Warden. He’d killed men for even trying to back out of the Joining, surely he would be disgusted with Alistair for leaving the Order? But then, Duncan was also a clever tactician who planned for all eventualities. He would have wanted to know more about Corypheus, surely, and seen that there had to be a relationship between his rise to power and the mass Calling.

But maybe considering Diamant’s offer meant Alistair was no better than the other Wardens. Maybe he too was turning to demons and just doing it less consciously. Maybe this was all a delusion, like that time in the Fade where a demon had convinced him he could have a happy life with his sister and her children.

But this didn’t _feel_ like that time in the Fade. Alistair’s limbs ached, his belly growled, his eyeballs felt just as sandy as his backside did, and the Calling sang and sang and sang to him.

“So why me?” he asked Diamant, and it curled its limbs a little tighter around his arms. Sort of like a hug, he supposed, if one had no real body and only arms.

 _Because you listened,_ Diamant told him. _We have been calling to Wardens for a long, long time. But the voice of the Blight is often louder and humans are easily distracted. Some heard us, but none came to us until you._

“Yeah, well. Maybe there’s a reason that I’m the only one to ever do it. Going into the damned Abyssal Rift because a voice in your dreams tells you to isn’t the brightest thing anyone has ever done.”

 _No, **we** will be the brightest thing you’ve ever done, _ Diamant told him, and Alistair blinked.

“Was that a joke? Did you just make a joke about the fact that you glow?”

Diamant said nothing, but it curled a few limbs at him.

With a slow smile, Alistair relaxed. “Well....okay then. Okay. I went to all the trouble to get you and here you are. I’m here, we’re here together. Let’s do this.” He paused. “How do we do this?”

 _We secrete a substance that begins the process of digesting the Blight,_ they told him, and he understood that it meant the sticky-slippery substance all over its limbs. _When we are purging the land, we emit it in bursts that mist the ground and sink into the soil, and then our roots absorb Blight that way. With a living body, you will need to ingest the juice as well as hosting us._

Alistair blushed, his mind taking that statement somewhere he shouldn’t, and then blushed harder knowing Diamant would see the thought.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, “I’m just not used to, uh. Well there’s no way to be delicate about it, but I’m not used to sucking fluids out of anyone when it wasn’t....y’know.”

 _We don’t care how you wish the juices administered,_ Diamant said, polite and unruffled. Alistair gaped. _It is all the same to us._

“You’re not seriously suggesting--” Alistair began, and then stopped himself. Duncan had taught him better. Be honest. “Well, _I_ shouldn’t be seriously suggesting that....that....that you bugger the Blight out of me.”

Diamant’s limbs curled again, indifferent, like the shoulderless equivalent of a shrug.

_You will need to sleep on your back tonight, and most of tomorrow, so that we may take root. Or, if you wish us to root into your back, sleep on your stomach._

“I don’t wish you to root anywhere,” he muttered, face still hot from blushing. “But it had better be my stomach. I can hide a potbelly better than I can hide a hunchback. I don’t walk like someone with spine troubles.”

Diamant curled and slid over his forearms in a way that seemed anticipatory, but Alistair could feel that it was a little nervous too.

For several minutes, Alistair sat and listened to the Calling. He hated it. He loved it. It was beautiful, reassuring, alluring. It was hateful, grating, disgusting.

Then Alistair looked down at Diamant, who was also sort of beautiful and disgusting. In that moment, it made sense to him that it would be this way.

“Fine,” he agreed, and took his shirt off, peeling it away from his sweaty torso. Sand speckled all over him, having worked its evil way beneath his armor and clothes. Maybe there needed to be Sand-Wardens who would eradicate _this_ blight. This stuff was awful. “Just let me get comfortable.”

Brushing sand out of his bedroll--as much as he could, anyway--he collapsed gratefully onto it, carrying Diamant down with him. It hooked two arms around his shoulders and tugged itself into place over his solar plexus, just below his ribcage. A dense bulb of tendrils there unwound, flowering open onto his belly and chest, and Alistair made himself look away. Diamant was quite pretty, really, all bluish-white light and glimmering pearlescent surfaces, but that didn’t make the idea of this any nicer.

 _Sleep,_ Diamant told him.

And for the first time in days, Alistair slept.

**

When Alistair became aware again, he knew just enough to realize that he was in that delicious half-waking state in which his limbs sagged pleasurably into the bed and everything was soft and lovely. Something held him, curled around his arms and belly and shoulders, and he sighed a little just to feel the squeeze of it.

But the more seconds passed, the more the song became foremost in his mind again. The beat and throb and the full-bodied voice of it still echoed through his bones.

He awoke with a grimace, fumbling around to his right until his palm slapped against the metal of his canteen. He had well and truly had about enough of the Calling. And the dehydration headache shooting through his skull. Damn.

 _So let us help you with that,_ a voice told him, and not the one that had been singing in his head for weeks, or months. It was a nice voice, a calm voice.

It was Diamant, Alistair remembered, the unbelievable thing he’d found in the Abyssal Rift. Double damn.

When Alistair pushed himself up onto his elbows to unscrew the top of the canteen, there indeed was Diamant, looking somehow smug despite having no face and no recognizable body language. Something about the curl of its limbs was eloquent.

“It is too early in the morning for buggery,” he told it. A limb uncurled at him like an embarrassed cough from a creature that had neither lungs nor a mouth.

 _It is early evening, actually,_ it informed him. _As we said, it would take all night and most of a day for us to attach. But now we are attached, which necessitates the other step of the process._

Alistair stared at the ceiling of his tent and resisted the urge to probe at his chest. He could feel that Diamant was pretty firmly in there somehow, but at least it didn’t hurt. He didn’t want to think about it too hard--or look at it too closely--in case it was some sort of spell that would fall apart with scrutiny.

“Water first. Then food. Then me sucking you off.”

The only response was Diamant wrapping its limbs close around Alistair’s belly and sides, flattening his silhouette until, with his shirt pulled back on and left untucked, it merely looked as though Alistair’s belly had softened with age. Which wasn’t far off from the truth anyway, or _hadn’t_ been before all the weight-loss from not sleeping.

Stumbling out of the tent--his head was really throbbing, this was like a damn hangover, and he’d even fallen asleep in his _boots_ \--Alistair greeted Fréderic with a wave before tapping the massive keg of water that was their supply. Fréderic barely glanced up from his notes--or from the stinking partial carcass of a phoenix he was examining with forceps. Alistair tried not to breathe too much.

Having refilled, quaffed, and then refilled his canteen again, Alistair raided the food stores. Joyous day, more jerky and dried fruits and biscuits! Just like he’d been eating for the last two days since he’d arrived! But boring or not he took all of it back to his tent anyway.

Settling cross-legged into his bedroll again, Alistair ate as quickly as he could with the chewy dried foods. Which was not very.

“I feel like a bad host, eating and not offering you any,” he told Diamant after a while of concerted chewing. It shifted under his tunic.

 _You are offering us the taint in your body,_ it told him. _Given the awkwardness of the feeding mechanism, you’ve already been quite welcoming._

Alistair couldn’t disagree with that. He finished his meal, rinsed his mouth out, and then undressed to the waist again.

“Normally I’d start with kissing,” he told it. “But, well. Lovely as you are, there’s a pretty obvious lack of lips.”

Diamant sat soft and tentative in the back of his mind. He wasn’t sure how he could tell it was being careful with him, but he knew that to be the case. It held up one of its thicker limbs, not quite as wide as his wrist, and curled it near his face like a question mark.

“Okay,” Alistair agreed, hands sweaty. All of him was sweaty in this damned heat, but normally his palms weren't murky like this. That was all anxiety. “Okay, yeah, let’s just....start with one. One is enough to start with.”

Feeling more than a little ridiculous, he bent his head forward and placed a kiss on the rounded curve of it. He’d already felt Diamant with his hands and knew its skin to be as soft and silky as the delicate skin on the insides of his arms. It felt just as nice on his lips, for the brief moment they touched. Diamant’s lights intensified, a flicker of encouragement. But Alistair paused, licking his lips to taste the film of sticky residue left behind. It was a little bitter but also sweet, like a lightly sugared tea.

“Huh,” Alistair grunted, surprised. “I dunno what I expected. That you’d taste awful I guess.”

The curl of Diamant’s limbs tightened, offended.

“Well honestly, your stuff is designed to break down the Blight. How nice was I supposed to think it would be? And anyway, it’s not like anyone else has tasted you before, right?”

Diamant supposed not. Alistair bent his head to kiss it again in apology. At the end of the kiss, he opened his lips just a little, tracing the warm curve of it with a tilt of his head.

The sense memory of rubbing his mouth up the equally warm underside of a man’s prick sprang unavoidably into Alistair’s mind. His jaw opened a little wider and his tongue came out automatically with no conscious thought at all.

The bitterness was stronger now with his tongue pressed directly to the limb, but so too was the sweetness. Not a cloying, overpowering sweetness, but faint and pleasant, and the floral scent of Diamant filled the close space of the tent, having had hours to fully suffuse. He moved back and forth, mouth sliding, just letting himself get used to the feel and smell and taste of it, before he nudged Diamant with one finger and took the tip of the limb onto his tongue.

 _Allow us,_ Diamant told him, polite, and Alistair understood that it meant to release some of its....chemical. Before he could do more than tense a little, the limb in his mouth wiggled, the skin changing texture with a ripple that left his tongue swamped in more of the same taste. He swallowed, and there was more, and then more.

When the limb finally withdrew, Alistair’s face itched with the intensity of his self-conscious blush.

“Well, that’s....not as bad as I feared, at least.”

 _You thought it would taste like semen,_ Diamant told him, a little judgmental.

“Or pine sap, or cod liver oil, or something awful,” Alistair admitted, because there was no point hiding it from something that could read his mind. “But it’s....nice. A lot nicer than most alcohol, honestly, and I drink that voluntarily without any promise of being cured of anything. Except maybe sobriety.”

Diamant said nothing to this, just lifted two more limbs toward his face. Dropping his jaw, Alistair allowed them in, closing his lips around them and tilting his chin up so he wouldn’t drool.

Now that the embarrassment and anxiety were out of the way, Alistair’s mind went right back to being reminded of cocksucking. He’d never tried two at once before, and was pretty sure it wouldn’t be anything like as manageable as this was with Diamant. Two cocks meant two men squashed up against each other, and while it was nice in theory, he suspected in practice it would just be awkward.

Alistair started to think it might be just as nice to have Diamant do what it needed to do in other places as well. When Diamant reached a limb down his belly in offering, though, Alistair flinched, shaking his head. He wasn’t ready for that. Silly as it was, he’d just....met....Diamant yesterday. That wasn’t how Alistair wanted his intimacy to be. The people he’d slept with had been his friends, at least, mostly fellow Wardens and once or twice the tradespeople who stocked Warden outposts. People he trusted and respected even if they weren’t in love.

But thinking of that just made Alistair tense and unhappy, remembering that the other Wardens had turned on him so that he’d ended up here. Sure, a few of his friends at Adamant had helped him escape from the fortress, but they hadn’t left with him. They’d allowed him to become a hunted outcast but made no allowances for him beyond that. Was he that forgettable and disposable? He supposed he had been to Aeducan, who’d disappeared looking for Morrigan and hadn’t been seen since.

A tendril curled over Alistair’s face, and Diamant nudged at the edge of his mind. Alistair sighed through his nose.

Turning his mind to better thoughts, Alistair finished--well, he couldn’t think of any better term for it than ‘sucking Diamant off’ but given that nobody was very aroused anymore and Diamant didn’t even have the mechanism for orgasm, it seemed like a misnomer. But Alistair made the rounds of all the limbs, there was sucking involved, and fluids _had_ been exchanged. By the end of it, his mouth tingled a little.

“And you’re really sure this is safe?”

 _Bit late to be worrying about it now, isn’t it?_ Diamant told him, and then wrapped its limbs tight around him so he could put his shirt back on. Alistair just sighed.

**

Later that evening he discovered another problem: Fréderic’s camp only provided the means for bathing with a single bucket of water, a cloth, and a brick of soap. When it had just been him and Fréderic that hadn’t been a problem. Alistair had bathed in front of other people starting when he’d been sent away to the Circle and continuing up through last month when he’d left the Wardens. But during none of those two decades had he needed to keep his entire torso a secret. Fréderic hadn’t glanced twice at Alistair during the week they’d shared a camp, clearly too interested in studying his samples or venturing out into the desert to observe the wildlife ‘in their natural habitat.’ But now that Alistair was suddenly carrying around wildlife and being its natural habitat, he was willing to bet Fréderic would pay attention. Especially since said wildlife literally glowed in the dark and was even more visible after nightfall.

Alistair hated being sweat-sticky and smelling of his own body odor. He always had. It reminded him too much of when he’d lived out in the stables with the dogs and horses and hadn’t bathed except when Isolde dragged him indoors and scrubbed him like it was a punishment. But knowing his luck, even if he waited till the middle of the night to bathe, he’d choose the one moment Fréderic got out of bed to piss. And Alistair couldn’t wash in his tent without soaking everything he owned. Which meant there was nothing to be done until he was on the road.

 _Well at least **we** smell nice, _ Diamant told Alistair as he resigned himself to being dirty.

“How do you even know what you smell like? You don’t have a nose,” Alistair grumped.

 _We know because you think we smell nice,_ Diamant responded, and Alistair couldn’t argue with that. He did think Diamant smelled nice.

He packed his bedroll and left the camp the next day, heading east and away from this beastly sandy disaster. Also, away from Griffon Wing Keep. Theoretically all the Orlesian and Fereldan Wardens were at Adamant now, but even so, the Western Approach was too famously a Warden outpost for Alistair to feel safe remaining anywhere near it.

He didn’t have a set destination other than ‘somewhere less like a potter’s kiln.’ But as he walked, he considered his list of friends, wondering who would take in someone on the run from the Wardens. Zevran came to mind; Alistair had received letters from him throughout the years. But never often, and they indicated that Zevran moved around a lot, still on the run from the Crows himself. Alistair had written back to Zevran but the addresses had always been temporary ones. Which meant that Alistair hadn’t the faintest clue how to go about contacting Zevran to ask him for help.

Ten years ago, Alistair would have run to Eamon. But since Alistair had refused the kingship and Aeducan had supported Anora’s claim to the throne, Eamon had lost all interest in Alistair. For a few years after the Blight, Eamon had sent the most cursory of replies to Alistair’s letters, and even then to only one letter out of five, before he had finally stopped bothering to answer at all. Once Alistair had realized that Eamon had never cared about Alistair except as a potentially manipulatable king (as Aeducan had baldly and cruelly pointed out during the Blight), Alistair had stopped writing. Honestly Eamon would probably turn Alistair over the authorities himself if he thought it’d get him more political clout.

Teagan still cared though. He answered Alistair’s letters. Alistair resolved to write to him as soon as possible. And in the meantime, a thought occurred to Alistair: the Inquisition was rapidly becoming an international power. They were allied with no particular nation but they ventured everywhere to mend the tears in the Veil. And they were well known for taking in _everyone_ \--the Inquisitor had refused to pick sides and had recruited both the Templars and the mages. Which meant that the Inquisition was neutral enough that it might tolerate the presence of a Warden on the run.

Having fixed upon a destination, Alistair shifted his pack on his shoulders and walked on, chainmail clinking.

It wasn’t until three days later--three days of swallowing what Diamant produced every evening before bed, which rapidly became less embarrassing and more just a part of daily life--that Alistair realized the Calling was much quieter.

Having finally reached a small hamlet (very small, it only featured an inn because it was on an east-west road that led into the Imperial Highway) and rented a room for the night, Alistair sat in the wooden bathtub and stared hard at the wall, listening to the song always playing in the back of his mind. It was still there, still present, but dimmer. Less overwhelming. Like a song playing in the same room rather than directly into his ear. He scrubbed his armpits and considered this.

“Does this mean it’s....working?” Alistair asked, skeptical. Diamant did the eyeless equivalent of rolling its eyes, managing to communicate the obviousness of the answer to Alistair’s question. “Well excuse me for asking!” Alistair complained. “This is the first time I’ve ever willingly engaged with magical entities promising the cure the Blight!”

By a week later, Alistair had escaped the hot parts of Orlais and returned to more reasonable climates. And, more notably, the Calling was quieter still. To the point where he could actually sleep most nights without whatever weird mind-trick Diamant had pulled that first day together.

Getting proper sleep meant that, after a few weeks, Alistair started getting erections again, both in the mornings and during the day when his mind wandered while walking. Diamant found all sorts of things about the human body fascinating--including flatulence--but this it found especially bizarre.

The first morning it happened, Alistair rolled over to pull on his tunic and found himself hard against his hip.

“Oh, hello,” he said to himself. If he’d been alone, he might have touched himself just out of sheer relief because it had been so long since he’d jerked off. But while he’d gotten used to doing everything else with Diamant essentially experiencing it with him, it was another thing entirely to want to _come_ with someone else feeling it. And also strange to have Diamant ‘seeing’ him like this for the first time.

 _We have listened to human minds for centuries, so this is not new,_ Diamant said. _But it’s true that it’s very different experiencing it all first-hand through you._

Alistair tried not to feel self-conscious. He failed.

 _Is there a problem with being small?_ Diamant inquired. _We have never understood this preoccupation._

“You wouldn’t understand, you’re basically--well I mean, your limbs are really thick and long,” Alistair stammered. “And anyway, I’ve seen enough dicks to know I’m perfectly average.”

_Do you truly think I care about the size of your reproductive organs?_

Sighing, Alistair supposed not.

 _I’m much more concerned with why humans work this way,_ Diamant went on. _It engorges when you’re aroused, but also when you’re not aroused, as with now. And engorgement is necessary for reproduction, but you haven’t been able to do that since I’ve met you. Wouldn’t it be simpler to have genitals that didn’t need some special process to be available for reproduction?_

“Well--I mean--yes,” Alistair admitted, carefully tucking his tunic into his trousers around Diamant’s limbs. “Take it up with the Maker, I didn’t design this. How do you even reproduce?

 _Budding,_ Diamant responded, the thought accompanied by a mental image of smaller versions of Diamant growing along its limbs before splitting off and blowing away in the wind to grow on their own. _Not needing to have physical contact with each other is how we spread so far throughout the Abyssal Rift._

“Huh.” He imagined being able to grow new smaller versions of himself from his arms and winced away from the mental image. Yuck. “So why did you need a Warden at all? Why didn’t you just climb out of the Rift yourselves?”

Diamant communicated a very upsetting mental image of Alistair dragging his genitals over the sharp rocks of the Rift--which was when Alistair put together how thin and soft Diamant’s skin was compared to how harsh the barren landscape was.

“I just thought--I mean you eat the Blight, and grow into rock or even living bodies, and you live in a place where the air is basically boiling. You seem pretty....tough. But I guess you’re really just soft.”

 _Like your genital,_ Diamant replied. Alistair blushed again. Thankfully the conversation had been enough of a deterrent that said genital had calmed down, and he got up to piss without further incident.

That day, Alistair reached Verchiel. He booked himself a room at an inn with a minimum of eye-rolling and mockery from the staff about the ‘Fereldan turnip’ and his thick accent. Given that most of the Orlesians Alistair had ever encountered had responded to him this way, starting in his earliest childhood with Isolde, Alistair thought little of it. The inn had private baths and that was all Alistair needed to know.

But as soon as Alistair set his pack down in his room and began to unbuckle his sword belt, Diamant stiffened along his belly, squeezing him a little tighter.

 _There are other Wardens here,_ Diamant told him, and Alistair startled, only just managing to not drop his sheath and belt onto the floor with a clatter.

He’d stopped hearing the Calling a week ago. Normally Alistair could feel other Wardens the way he could feel Darkspawn--but perhaps that ability, too, was leaving him along with the taint.

“How many?” Alistair asked.

 _Five,_ Diamant told him. _Downstairs. They’ve heard about a Warden matching your description going along the east-west road. They’re going to ask the innkeeper if you’re here._

“Oh Maker,” Alistair swore, then buckled his sword back on and hoisted his pack. “I didn’t expect them to try this hard to find me. They must be afraid I’ll blab about the blood magic and demons and everything.” He cursed again, under his breath--he didn’t have enough money for another inn. Or he did, but not if he wanted to continue eating during the rest of his trip to Skyhold. Selling the enchanted chainmail hadn’t fetched half the price he’d paid for it. Unsurprisingly, few people wanted mail armor designed to half-freeze its own wearer.

Alistair pushed open the shutters. He was on the third floor--a fall from this height would hurt. But a broken ankle was better than dying--or worse, being taken back to Adamant to be culled there and his body used for blood magic.

 _Wait,_ Diamant told him. _One of the Wardens just wants to speak to you. Stay where you are._

“One out of five is still two of us against four in close quarters!” Alistair hissed, climbing into the window. But one of Diamant’s bright limbs snaked out of the collar of his armor, wrapping around the sill and holding on.

 _Please trust me,_ Diamant pleaded. Alistair stared down at the street below, a thin alley with a few cramped doorways and dodgy cobbles. He considered that he’d already allowed Diamant to grow out of his own actual body--and with that as a starting place, what was a little more trust?

Sighing, he removed his pack and lay down on the bed, pausing before his back hit the mattress so Diamant could move its limbs where they wouldn’t be squashed. When a few minutes later his locked door unlocked and Alistair ‘woke’ from his pretend nap, the threshold revealed the innkeeper and a very familiar face. Alistair's eyes went wide.

He hadn’t prepared himself for Jean-Marc Stroud. The others with him Alistair didn’t know well--one of them he knew the name of, but the last three he had never served with and only knew by sight from Adamant. Alistair stood from the bed and didn’t have to feign his shock.

“Alistair,” Jean-Marc murmured, holding his gaze. “You have led us on a merry chase through Orlais, and given that I didn’t ever want to come back, the fact that I _am_ here should tell you how unhappy I am.”

Alistair blushed, hand gripping on the hilt of his sword. He braced his feet on the ground, eyes glancing between the other four Wardens, none of whom looked pleased to see him either, and the innkeeper, who seemed delighted to be present for this free drama.

“Well, you could have just let me go, then you could be in a lovely mood elsewhere and I could be having a nap,” Alistair remarked, lifting one eyebrow in challenge. Diamant was telling him silently to stick it out--and it was clear now that Jean-Marc was the one Diamant had meant. Small mercies, at least, that Jean-Marc didn’t hate Alistair too. Alistair had tried hard not to think too closely about any of the other Wardens over the last weeks, but Jean-Marc in particular would have been a painful betrayal.

“You know why we cannot do that,” Jean-Marc stated, and then he turned to the Innkeeper. “Leave us. My men will come downstairs shortly for a meal, so you can get all the gossip you wish from them then.” Grumbling about expecting compensation for any potential damage to the room, the innkeeper left. The other Wardens turned unfriendly eyes on Alistair. Stroud just looked calm as he pulled iron cuffs from his belt.

“Come willingly, and I can promise safe passage and a good word on your behalf to the Warden-Commander,” Stroud murmured, stepping a little closer. Alistair stared at the cuffs: they were thick metal, and Alistair didn’t remember how to pick locks despite all the effort Zevran and Leliana had spent trying to teach him. If he allowed himself into those cuffs, the only way he’d get out was via key or the goodwill of a blacksmith.

 _Do it,_ Diamant told him. _Your safety is our safety. So believe us, this one means you no harm._

“Normally I’d expect to be bought dinner first and shown a good time,” Alistair joked, his palms sweaty. But he managed to keep the anxious misery out of his voice, and from the outside no one could tell how hard his heart was beating or how much he wanted to cry. Jean-Marc just narrowed his eyes at Alistair; they both knew perfectly well that Jean-Marc had already not only shared meals with Alistair but a whole variety of very intimate good times.

The cuffs were heavy, weighing upon Alistair’s wrists as Jean-Marc ratcheted them closed with a series of sharp clicks. At that the other Wardens relaxed, taking their hands off their weapons.

“Go,” Jean-Marc told the four of them. “We have him. And he’s already paid for the room so we have the use of it for the night. Bring us dinner later.”

The others obeyed, leaving Alistair and Jean-Marc and, secretly, Diamant alone in the room together.

“So,” Jean-Marc began, as they listened to the heavy boots of the others going down the hall. “You escaped from Adamant. Everyone who was ever close to you was interrogated after you left, myself included. Thank you for that, by the way.”

Alistair managed not to _look_ guilty even as his sweaty armpits told a different tale. At least Diamant seemed to like the salt-water of sweat or this would have been extra awkward.

“It clearly turned out fine,” Alistair shrugged. “You’re here, after all, and still in command.”

 _The others are downstairs now,_ Diamant reported. It was so unnerving that Alistair could only feel Jean-Marc himself--and now only because they were close enough to be in the same room. Alistair hadn’t realized his Warden abilities would be compromised so quickly.

“Yes,” Jean-Marc agreed. “I am here now, and I am still in command, and you were always good at following orders.” Alistair blushed again, remembering. “So tell me, Alistair, where have you been the last month and a half?”

 _Tell him the truth,_ Diamant prompted, vehement. Alistair really wanted to know what on earth Jean-Marc could be thinking that would make Diamant so certain, but he was already here and cuffed. How much worse could it get if he kept right on obeying orders, like Jean-Marc wanted?

“I went to the Abyssal Reach, and then into the Rift,” Alistair said, blunt. Handcuffs made him abrupt, he supposed.

Jean-Marc’s eyes spread open. “The Rift,” he breathed. “How did you-- _why_ did you go there?”

“While Clarel was promising to end the Blight by killing half of us and summoning demons into the others,” Alistair spat, “I was responding to a different offer.” The ends of Diamant’s limbs curled, and only constant exposure to touch like that over the last weeks kept Alistair from flinching. He was much less ticklish now than he had been before.

“A different--? Nevermind, there isn’t time,” Jean-Marc whispered, dropping his voice. He glanced at the door, which the others had shut behind them. “Look,” he leaned in, close to Alistair’s face. He still smelled of the same oil he used on his mustache. The scent of it brought back memories. “This was the only way I could get Clarel to allow me out of Adamant. But if we both mean to escape we have to leave now.”

Alistair glanced at the window and Jean-Marc nodded. He unlocked Alistair’s cuffs, then tied a rope to the legs of the bed and lowered the tail of it out the window. A few minutes later they were out, striding down the alleyway and into the city.

They didn’t stop until they were deep into a different part of Verchiel, where Jean-Marc knocked on the back-door of a restaurant. Once inside, it turned out that Stroud had known the owner back when he had been the son of a wealthy Orlesian family, and had left her a great deal of said wealth when he joined the Wardens. The woman welcomed them both in with wide eyes, apparently seeing in their faces that she should not ask too many questions while they stood in the active kitchen. She took them upstairs to her living space instead.

When Alistair and Jean-Marc were alone again, this time with a spread of warm food and fine wine laid out before them, Jean-Marc sighed, rubbing at his face. Alistair didn’t like seeing him unhappy, so he hastened to fill the silence. But then he realized that what he had to say was probably not going to be reassuring to hear.

“I’m, uh. Not sure if I should tell you what I’ve been up to before or after we finish eating,” Alistair said. At this, Jean-Marc’s face went grim, and Alistair hastened to correct his words. “It’s nothing disgusting--or maybe it is? I’m just not sure how you will take this.”

“I thought you were just fleeing the Wardens,” Jean-Marc replied. “Now you make it sound as if you are involved in something terrible.”

“Not terrible,” Alistair shook his head, and then stuffed a forkful of food into his mouth while he thought of how to explain it. When Alistair swallowed, he sighed.

Alistair had known that someday he would have to explain Diamant to someone. Diamant had made it clear that eventually there would be no more Blight left in Alistair’s body and they would have to part ways. When that happened, Alistair would need another Warden, or some other tainted person or place, to leave Diamant with. He just hadn’t expected to have to explain this so soon. (And he certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone that he sucked Diamant off every night, so Maker help him if Jean-Marc asked any questions about the mechanism of the cleansing.)

“People used to say that the Warden outpost in the Western Approach was haunted,” Alistair began. “The men there used to talk about hearing ghosts, do you remember?”

“I was never stationed at Griffon Wing Keep,” Jean-Marc stated, and that killed that particular avenue of explanation. Alistair searched for another.

Diamant pre-empted him by simply reaching one limb up and out of his collar, curling along his neck and behind his ear. Jean-Marc’s eyes went wide and he stood from his chair in a jumble, almost tripping over the table leg in his haste to get away.

“What the--”

“This is Diamant,” Alistair sighed, thinking _Thank you very much, you unhelpful jerk, I would have found a way to tell him._

 _You would have fumbled your way through euphemisms and half-truths and wasted everybody’s time,_ Diamant disagreed, with what Alistair felt was unnecessary harshness. Though, to be fair, that had been his intent.

“I found it in the Abyssal Rifts. It’s a kind of....plant, or animal, I'm not really sure, that feeds off the Blight itself.”

 _It is good to meet another Warden, finally,_ Diamant said, and Alistair saw the exact moment that Jean-Marc realized he could hear its voice.

“Maker,” he whispered. “I thought I had left the demons behind in Adamant.”

Curling unhappily, Diamant expressed wordless dismay at this response. Jean-Marc’s eyes narrowed.

“So when you say it feeds off the Blight, do you mean....”

 _We are curing him of the taint in his blood,_ Diamant replied for Alistair. _Soon he will no longer be a Warden. And there are thousands of others like me. We could cure every Warden, and nearly every other person still alive who has been harmed by Darkspawn, without ever needing to resort to demons._

The explanations that followed took a while, and by the time they had occurred, the dinner was cold. Even so it was tastier than trail rations, so Alistair ate it with gusto.

“A cure for the Blight,” Jean-Marc murmured, staring into his wine glass. “And it’s been in the Approach all along.”

“Apparently Wardens are very good at not listening to whispers of ambiguous origin in their minds, who knew,” Alistair sniped, half at Diamant and half at Jean-Marc. He _had_ put Alistair into cuffs, however briefly, and Alistair was still cranky about it.

“We should not travel together,” Jean-Marc said then, and Alistair nearly dropped his own glass, staring at the other man in dismay.

“What? Why?”

“Because two Wardens in hiding are an even greater target than one, and if we go different ways, we will confuse each other’s trails,” Jean-Marc explained. “And if this thing is not a demon, then others must be fetched out of the Approach.”

Diamant agreed with this, but Alistair--Alistair had already been allowing himself to imagine traveling with Jean-Marc again. A year had passed since they had been stationed in the Free Marches together, and while Stroud had been emotionally unavailable and distant as long as Alistair had known him, he was still a good man--and a fine lover, skilled and generous. Alistair had been looking forward to having that again.

“Before we found you, where were you going?” Jean-Marc asked.

Sighing, Alistair told him: “The Inquisition.”

“Good,” Jean-Marc approved. “They have the reach to disperse the knowledge that something like this....this _Diamant_ exists.”

Diamant perked up at this. Alistair had been fleeing to the Inquisition seeking asylum. He hadn’t considered them as a dispersal point for knowledge of Diamant’s species--or even for other members of it. But the Inquisition was gaining influence everywhere, poking its fingers into every corner of things, so why wouldn’t they want the potential fame and fortune that would go with finding a real cure for the Blight? If even one Inquisition leader could be convinced that Diamant wasn’t a demon....

“But where will you go?” Alistair asked.

Jean-Marc gestured at the room around them. “I was a man with connections for decades before I joined the Wardens. I cut ties with many when I left the Game behind, but not all. I will make my way just fine.”

“And if not, you can hide in a dank cave somewhere it rains.”

Jean-Marc snorted at this. They both knew he hated rain and wouldn’t endure it for anything but the pursuit of Darkspawn.

They spent the rest of the evening catching up and discussing Diamant, and with Diamant discussing its species with them. The next morning, Alistair headed out wearing new clothes with his highly-visible Grey Warden armor left behind. He felt half-naked without it, worried that any threat would gut him. But the loss was made a little more bearable by Jean-Marc’s friend promising to hold their armor for them in case they ever needed it again.

Diamant liked the change, at least. Less chafing metal and leather was all the better as far as it was concerned.

Jean-Marc gave Alistair one sweet, lingering kiss on the mouth as they departed, and then sent Alistair on his way.

 _So that’s how kissing feels,_ Diamant remarked.

“That wasn’t bad. But it can be even better,” Alistair sighed, and allowed himself to wallow in his memories of Jean-Marc and the fact that they hadn’t been able to repeat any of them.

During the day, though, following along near a trade caravan and their host of guards and retinue, Alistair thought about what had happened in Verchiel.

He trusted Diamant now. Well and truly. It was no longer the desperate trust of a man half-mad from the Calling and desperate for anything that could save him. He had made a _choice_ to trust Diamant in Verchiel, and Diamant’s intervention had allowed Alistair to escape the Wardens again and helped a man he cared for and respected to escape as well.

“Thank you, for that,” Alistair told it, and made himself not turn it into a joke. Diamant acknowledged the thanks with a little squeeze of Alistair’s waist, and Alistair laid his hand over his breastbone where Diamant connected to him. The knot of flesh there, which Alistair had hidden under his armor before and which was now concealed with a voluminous cloak and scarf, was warm and living under his palm. It felt good to touch, Alistair realized, in the same way that touching a friend’s face or hand felt good.

That night, after Alistair had set up his tent near all the caravan’s carts, Alistair lay in his bedroll listening to the voices and animal sounds and he thought about Stroud. He remembered the time they had spent together in the Free Marches researching Corypheus. He remembered the sex, the ways Jean-Marc’s body had moved and how he had sounded as he came. Diamant watched it all with interest, unusually reserved, until it occurred to Alistair that he might, at last, feel comfortable doing something about the arousal he now felt.

“Would you mind? If I touched myself?” he murmured, keeping his voice down. He didn’t want to be overheard.

 _We’re very curious,_ Diamant replied, and then curled the tip of one limb into Alistair’s navel. He let out a squeak of laugher and flicked lightly at it with a fingernail. _We could even help, if you wanted. Like you imagined on that first day._

Blood rushed to Alistair’s face--and down between his legs. For several long seconds he lay in indecision, and Diamant let him do so. It radiated curiosity at him, but it was just as clear that no judgment would follow if he did not venture beyond their usual evening ritual.

There were so many times in Alistair’s life when he had not been adventurous. People to whom he had never confessed his interest, assignments to new places he hadn’t taken, things he had never tried. He had been too afraid of loss to take risks--and look what had happened _this_ time when he had ventured an unpopular opinion! He’d lost all the Wardens together.

But as he so often did even now, ten years later, he regretted the chance he had never taken with Duncan. Alistair had been half in love with the man from the first day they’d met. But Alistair had said nothing about it, assuming that Duncan would find Alistair’s interest mortifying and unwelcome. Now, with the advantage of experience, Alistair thought that even if Duncan had been disinterested he would have been kind about it. He was that kind of man. And if he _had_ been interested....well. It was much much too late now but the possibility of it still haunted him.

Aeducan had tried to get Alistair to have his first time with a pirate in a brothel, or with Zevran, but Alistair had avoided both options. But even something casual like that probably would have been better than Alistair's actual first time. Zevran had apparently had a grand time with the pirate, and with everybody else he slept with. Instead, Alistair had waited and lost his virginity years later to a fellow virgin. It had been awkward and miserable and ruined their connection completely.

His mind finally made up to take a risk this time, self-conscious but also a little shaky with excitement, Alistair pushed his hand down his trousers and cupped the half-hardness there, stroking his thumb down the top of the shaft. It had been long enough since he’d handled himself for anything other than necessity’s sake that when he ran into the edge of the corona, still tucked away in his foreskin, Alistair drew in a sharp breath in surprise.

Diamant reached down a pair of limbs, pausing at the top of his breeches, and Alistair hastened to undo the placket and make room. At this obvious invitation, Diamant extended and wrapped around him once, twice, the end of the limb curling right into the sensitive spot at the underside of the head. The sight of himself wrapped in the glowing coil and the feeling of the exquisitely soft flesh got a sharp open-mouthed sigh from Alistair. The first warm swell of feeling bloomed over him. His palms prickled with sweat.

He hardened into that tentative grip fast, and the harder he got, the more curious Diamant became. It squeezed and rubbed at him, its explorations nothing like consistent enough to get Alistair near orgasm but plenty enough to make him wet and shaky. It pulled at his foreskin, squeezing at the shaft until the loose folds slipped all the way up over the head before retracting it back down. Diamant explored the salty dampness at the opening of his cock, dipping into the little hole. It tugged at his balls, careful with them, weighing them against its limb. A third limb extended downward, pushing at the more yielding bump of flesh behind his purse, and then finally wandered down enough to press at his entrance. Alistair just gripped at his blankets and rolled his hips, the planes of his body lit up by Diamant’s brightness and the feeling of its touch.

 _We can feel how much you enjoy this,_ Diamant remarked. _What a strange sensation! The closest we come is when we eject our digestive fluids, but it is not very similar. No wonder humans think about this so often._

One-handed Alistair fumbled at his pack, digging into one of the side-pockets to find the little glass flask he kept there, full of sweet-smelling oil for his leather goods. Diamant was so silky--and now he was ready to think of it, all his mind could imagine was how good Diamant would feel inside him. Where a man might grow too rough during his own pleasure, Diamant would not do that. An image flashed through his head, though, of Diamant trying to fit all its limbs inside him--and Alistair jolted in Diamant’s grasp, biting at his own lip to keep himself quiet as he uncorked the phial. His limbs went weak with arousal, skin overheated even in the cool night air of a central Orlesian spring.

Filling his hands with oil, Alistair moved them into loose fists and held them front to back, creating a channel through the both of them. Diamant quickly took the hint, thrusting one limb in through the grip of one hand and out the top of the other, slicking its length with oil. The feeling of that push through his grip got another shiver of pleasure from Alistair and a rush of memories of the men he had fucked, their pricks moving through his hands just like this. But when the oiled limb pressed with careful insistence between his legs, Alistair forced his hips still, shifting his heels further apart on the bedroll. Diamant tensed the limb so it stretched out long and thin and then pushed inwards with slow care.

The first tender breaching felt like fingers clad in silk, but after that Diamant _squirmed,_ wriggling back and forth to get deeper and deeper--and that was _nothing_ like human. Alistair’s jaw fell open, chest heaving as he gasped, the weight of Diamant upon his breastbone suddenly leaving him struggling for air. Arousal rolled through him like a wave and he was glad that he was lying down, suddenly dizzy and helpless.

“How does it--” Alistair whispered, then shuddered into silence as Diamant slid deeper still, past something tight and pleasurable inside him. His left heel slipped on the bedroll, skittering out into his boots and the end of his sword sheath. “Oh, Maker!” Alistair bit out, wondering how deep it could even get. The limbs were only so long, but a their fullest reach, they hung almost to his knees. “How--how is it for you?”

 _This feels like when we took root in you,_ Diamant replied, and there was a flash of a memory of the joy of growing into living flesh, roots slipping easily into warm, yielding tissue rather than the baked-hard earth of the Rift. Until now he hadn’t understood how _good_ that had felt after centuries of the species eking out a difficult life in Thedas’ most inhospitable terrain. Neither had he understood how pleasurable it had also been for Diamant to know that it was helping one of the _living_ creatures affected by the Blight as well as the land itself. The species had wanted it for a long, long time, listening to the Grey Wardens live and die in the Western Approach.

“Another,” Alistair begged, feeling tender-hearted and wanting more inside him. Diamant had saved his life in Verchiel, and was still saving it now, however strange a thought it was that getting fucked might be lifesaving. But he would live to be old because of Diamant. At thirty-one, Alistair had known for years that he was approaching his own death, and hearing the Calling hadn’t been surprising until everyone else had started hearing it too. But now a wide future free of the Deep Roads spread out before him, and Diamant was the one who was making it possible.

The first limb had gone still, now deep enough that lots of the little fluid-secreting nodules were buried in Alistair. By the time a second limb was slicked and pressing in, Alistair was begging, a litany of “Please, please,” under his breath. Diamant’s other limbs curled tight and restless over his belly and chest.

 _We have never been desired before,_ Diamant remarked, limbs flashing in a display that was, Alistair realized, their equivalent of a blush. _This is....nice._

Alistair, ass stretching around a second writhing limb, only just had enough coordination to extend his tongue in invitation to the limbs near his face. Two took the hint right away, pressing down his tongue and curling inside his cheeks and behind his teeth. The sweet tea-taste of them flooded his mouth at once, but this time he could feel the sudden wetness of it between his legs, too. The limbs pulsed in his mouth, his ass, and Alistair closed his eyes and let the brightness of it glow through his eyelids and along his nerves.

Emptied of their reserves of fluid, the two limbs inside him began to withdraw.

 _Tighten up around us,_ Diamant told him. _It needs to stay inside you._

Alistair whimpered through his nose at the words, overwhelmed by his response to them. But he pulled his legs up toward his chest and clamped down, too: obedient. He had always liked to follow orders in bed, wanting it before he even knew it was something people did. Another pair of limbs snaked into him, filling him up and brushing against all his tender places as they did so, and then he was wetter still inside. Diamant was milking itself out inside him--and that image made Alistair’s prick jerk and twitch on his belly, still held by another limb. The knowledge that he could have this anytime he wanted for the rest of his journey to Skyhold warmed him still further.

When he finally came--six limbs later--it was with the long slow bloom of pleasure that he always felt from being fucked, so different from the sharp fast pleasure of his cock. In the back of his mind he felt Diamant’s shock at the sensation, their surprise and delight at this experience that was so unfamiliar to them.

And there were still more limbs to go.

 _Where would you like the rest?_ Diamant asked, polite as ever. Alistair, sluggish and loose after his orgasm, could barely think enough to answer the question. But after a pause he let his knees fall a little wider, indicating his decision that way. Another pair slipped down between his thighs, and even invited, the pressure and movement of them inside him earned a whole-body shiver as they dragged along his oversensitized nerves.

Time stretched as he took it, and some unmarked number of minutes later, the last limb had emptied into him. Rather than withdrawing, though, Diamant paused, final limb still buried deep inside. The decadent pleasure of being fucked past his own sensitivity had left Alistair lax and soft, thoughtless and contented. His mind lay as peaceful as the rest of him. Everything smelled of roses and semen.

 _Since you cannot simply swallow as you normally do, and we don’t want this to leak...._ Diamant began. Alistair waited, interested to know what the solution would be and hedonistic enough to not much care what it was. So when Diamant’s final limb curled up inside him, tightening into a firm knot just beyond his entrance and effectively plugging him up, Alistair only stared wide-eyed at the low ceiling of his tent. His cock twitched, sliding limp over his hip but still trying to respond. He couldn’t quite resist rocking his hips down just to feel it pull against his hole and press tight against the sweet spot inside him. He would not be able to come again so soon, but the feeling of it made him wish it were possible.

In the end, for lack of anything else to do, he pulled the blankets up over himself, occasionally wiggling a bit just to feel Diamant more keenly. Diamant curled around his sides at that, amused, and a few minutes later Alistair fell asleep that way, drifting into fragmented dreams.

**

Traveling with Diamant had been pleasant enough before. Diamant was an amiable companion, happy to take in the sights through Alistair and interested in both him and most of what he had to say. But adding sex to the mix made Alistair’s evenings far more exciting. Sleeping outdoors on a thin bedroll had never been his idea of a good time, but having something to look forward to about bedding down made the deprivation of traveling much more tolerable. Alistair had to budget for more oil in Lydes, going without breakfasts for several days to afford it, and considered it very worthwhile.

Halamshiral passed soon enough and then he came the loop of road heading south and down around the Frostbacks to Skyhold. This road was new-cut within the last year but already worn smooth by the passage of so many to and from the Inquisition headquarters. Again Alistair found himself surrounded by caravans, this time full of both trade good and refugees. They welcomed him among them as one of their own.

But the nearer Alistair got to Skyhold, the more it sank in: Diamant was _curing_ him. He no longer had the grim dreams of the Darkspawn, and the Calling was a mere memory. He wouldn’t die young because of the taint, but nor would he be a Warden ever again.

He tried to imagine what Duncan would say and couldn’t. Perhaps Duncan would have been disappointed or angry at Alistair for abandoning the cause, or perhaps he would have been relieved and proud that Alistair had found another way to combat the Blight and been spared its ravages. Alistair barely knew how to feel about it himself. The Wardens had cast him out and turned to demons, but he’d still hoped that someday they would come to their senses and he could return to continue the noble sacrifice they made. It wasn’t that he’d ever wanted to die, but he had wanted to be part of something meaningful, and the Wardens had given him that.

But that was all over now. Which meant that for the first time in his entire life, Alistair’s future was his own--and it was a far more daunting prospect than he had ever imagined. He was not tied to anything or anyone. Not to the throne, not to the Templars, and not to the Wardens. He had no orders and no destiny anymore.

Diamant, while kind about the situation, was no philosopher and had no advice to offer. It knew its fate: Alistair would take it to Skyhold, and the Inquisition would find another host for it or take it to somewhere affected by the Blight to take root in the soil. While its preference was for a living host, it would be contented regardless. And if the Inquisition was half as clever as Alistair hoped and other people said, then they would soon go in search of others from Diamant’s species. Having control over the means to cure the Blight was a powerful bargaining chip, and Alistair could only hope they would use it well. Diamant agreed.

“What happens when I’m cured?” Alistair asked under his breath, trying to keep his mind off his aching thighs from climbing up, up, up into the mountains. The refugees rarely had spare space on horseback or in their carts, so as kind as they were, nobody had offered him a ride.

Diamant curled more tightly around him, both for warmth in the bitter mountain air and also as a gesture of support.

_When there is no more taint within your blood, we will detach. We are not certain, but we think that the connection between our minds will remain open for at least a few days as the traces of us leave your body. But we cannot speak to those who are not infected, so over time we will no longer be able to speak to you._

This possibility had not even occurred to Alistair. At those words he automatically pressed his palm over the soft lump where Diamant grew out of him. He lost track of his feet and almost tripped on an errant rock, hastily catching himself.

He couldn’t think of what to say. He felt that he ought to say something, but the prospect of being unable to speak to Diamant anymore on top of losing them as a companion and a lover was almost unbearable. He’d already lost the Wardens, and now this too?

 _The Inquisition will want you,_ Diamant offered, clearly trying to reassure him. _You are a skilled fighter, and as the Wardens are so secretive, the Inquisition will want any information you can provide about the Blight and Corypheus. And us._

“Diamant-kind, yeah,” Alistair muttered, trying not to look like a crazy person talking to himself. “I guess I am the only human expert right now.” He slowed his pace, allowing himself to fall behind the group. It wasn’t as if he had to pretend to be tired; his pack always weighed heavily on his shoulders, his thighs were nothing but burn, and his left knee was aching with strain. He missed being twenty-one, when his pains from everything outside of battle had all been brief and mild and fixable with elfroot. And they were still at least a week out from Skyhold. The mountains were just too big. Just too many mountains.

“So after we’re finished,” Alistair said, the words slow and tentative, “I’ll probably never see or hear from you again, will I? It’s not like you can write.”

Diamant curled unhappily around his hips and ribs, squeezing. It didn’t like that idea any more than he did.

 _If the Inquisition finds another Warden for us, or someone else infected, we might be able to convince them to write to you,_ Diamant admitted. But they didn’t sound hopeful.

Digging his hand under his cloak and scarf, Alistair stroked over Diamant in return.

“You’ve known this for a while, haven’t you,” Alistair sighed. “But it’s okay. Everybody I’ve been close to has left. I can cope. What doesn’t kill you makes you weird and uncomfortable to be around, right?” He let out a bitter little laugh.

 _That is exactly why we didn’t mention it sooner,_ Diamant chided. _Because we thought you might take it like that._

At this Alistair deflated. Many, many people over the years had berated him for making jokes out of serious things, and it still hadn’t stopped him even if he felt embarrassed as a result. But it was different coming from someone whose care he could literally feel.

 _We are glad you were the one to find us,_ Diamant added then, and Alistair simply stopped, stumbling off the road to lean against a tree with one arm. Limbs tightened around his belly but that wasn’t why he couldn’t breathe. _We waited a long time for a Warden to listen. We were afraid we might be found by someone cruel who would hurt us or take advantage of us or try to sell us for profit._

“It could be our lucky day and the Inquisition could turn out to be a bunch of meanies,” he said, mouth on autopilot. But Diamant only squeezed him again, understanding.

_We do not think they will. Everything you have heard about them indicates that they will bring us where we can do good._

“And I’ll be sent away, unwanted as usual,” Alistair bit out.

 _You will not be a Warden anymore,_ Diamant disagreed. _That means you can go wherever you want, with whomever you want. And the Inquisition will want you._

“I just....” A hundred thoughts went through his head. Of Eamon, of Aeducan, of the Wardens. People for whom Alistair had only been of interest when he was agreeable and useful. “I hope you’re right,” was all he said, after a pause, and rubbed his thumb over the soft shape of Diamant’s core.

Then Alistair started walking again.

**

When they finally reached Skyhold, it was everything he’d heard. A massive fortress, mazy and confusing. He wandered around until an exceedingly pretty woman in beautiful golden satin introduced herself as Josephine Montilyet, ambassador of the Inquisition, and asked him if he was with any particular party.

Diamant couldn’t communicate with her, as she was untouched by the Blight, so Alistair just took a stab in the dark.

“I’m coming from the Grey Wardens. I have information about Corypheus and the Blight that may be of interest.”

The woman pursed her mouth into a little O of surprise. Then she took him to Leliana--and that gave Alistair a shock, seeing Leliana all dressed in expensive Inquisition armor. He’d heard that she had become Left Hand of the Divine, which had been strange enough to hear after knowing her when most people thought she was mad for talking about visions from the Maker. Clearly the work had aged her, as she now had lines around her eyes that hadn’t been there before. But she looked otherwise healthy and not-mad and had been kind to him during the Blight--and she recognized him immediately, greeting him with kisses to both cheeks. Which meant that Alistair wouldn’t have to try to convince anyone of who he was.

Leliana and Ambassador Josephine took him to the War Table. At the War Table Alistair got another shock as the Ambassador introduced him to the people there: Commander Cullen, whom most everybody in Thedas had heard of by now, turned out to be the Cullen from Kinloch Keep. He looked so different when well-fed and not-mad that Alistair barely recognized him. But that was fine, lots of people from the days of the Blight were just turning up today apparently, all of them healthy and not-mad now. Maybe that was a good omen? The Leliana that Alistair remembered would have said it was a sign from the Maker.

The Inquisitor and the intimidatingly-handsome Seeker Pentaghast looked at Alistair with interest. Alistair looked around the gathered political bigwigs and regretted lunch. Now that it came right down to it, he wasn’t sure he trusted all of these people. But he couldn’t turn back now.

 _Moment of truth,_ Alistair told himself. He explained about Diamant as best he could but from the skeptical looks he got, he could tell he was making a hash of it. Leliana looked as though she suspected _he_ had been the one to go mad.

Diamant intervened. _Just show me to them._

So Alistair first removed his cloak and scarf, hanging them over the back of a nearby chair. Then he took off his heavy jacket, laying it across the seat. Then came his undercoat, at which point Leliana looked confused, understanding that this was more than just being too warm.

“Alistair--” she began to say, but he held up his finger, asking for a moment more.

Finally he lifted his shirt off in front of five very attractive people who held the wellbeing of most of Thedas in their hands. Alistair had never experienced a more high-stakes disrobing in his life.

“Oh my,” the Ambassador murmured as Alistair neatly folded his shirt and placed the linen on the war table. Commander Cullen just stared, wide-eyed and gaping. Leliana’s eyes narrowed, and Seeker Pentaghast’s lips tightened into a knot. She looked a little ill.

But the Inquisitor smiled, reaching out a hand toward Diamant. Diamant reached back, wrapping politely around two fingers. The Inquisitor giggled, clearly delighted.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea--?” Commander Cullen began, but the Inquisitor cut him off, breathless.

“And you said it will be how long until it--er, they?--drop off you and are ready for someone else?”

“A few more days,” Alistair responded, managing to suppress a sigh. “Which means we need to get our hands on another Warden or someone else infected by the Blight, and quickly. Diamant can survive a week, possibly two, without a food source. But not longer than that.”

The Inquisitor looked ready to speak, but this time Commander Cullen interrupted.

“How much do you know about the Red Templars? Because depending on how it reacts to lyrium, I think we have just the man.”

**

Later, after explaining about red lyrium and waiting for Alistair to recover from that horrific information, Cullen explained who might be available for Diamant to help.

“There are several infected Templars here,” he sighed. “But the man who is most valuable to us alive is Samson, Corypheus’ general.”

Alistair didn’t like the sound of that at all, but Commander Cullen brought him--and Diamant--into the dungeons to meet the man. Diamant had been feeling something all day since arriving at Skyhold, an awareness of people who were not Wardens but were still polluted by the Blight. And the half-dead-looking man in the cell with blood-red eyes certainly looked tainted with _something_. Diamant wrapped tighter around Alistair, flinching away from whatever it saw in Samson’s mind.

“Not him,” Alistair said, decisive in the face of Samson’s cruel face. “He’s--mean!”

Commander Cullen gave a bitter laugh. “He helped kill and corrupt hundreds, maybe _thousands_ of people. Did you expect him to be sweet?”

The low chuckle of amusement Samson gave at this didn’t ingratiate him to Alistair at _all._

 _We could help him, though,_ Diamant said. _He is slowly dying, like you were. From lyrium withdrawals and the Blight together. We are so naturally magical that we do not think lyrium will hurt us, but...._

“Not him,” Alistair insisted. “Find someone else.”

Commander Cullen brought them to the infirmary next, where a handsome young Templar sat reading a book. He looked up as they approached, and under Alistair’s clothes, Diamant perked up.

 _Him,_ Diamant said immediately. _The injury that infected him with red lyrium is recent but progressing rapidly. He will die soon if we don’t intervene. The other one, Samson, he will live a while longer. There is time for us to think it over. But this one, he will die, and he is kind._

The conversation in which Alistair and Commander Cullen explained the situation to the young Templar, Ser Barris, was an awkward one. Alistair lifting his shirt to show Ser Barris how Diamant attached to him was even more awkward. But in the end, between seeing Alistair healthy and hearing Diamant 'talk,' Ser Barris agreed.

**

That evening after dinner, Alistair was called back to the War Table for more planning. The need for more of Diamant’s species was immediate. With so many Inquisition workers infected by red lyrium while trying to contain it, Templars exposed unknowingly by their superiors in Therinfal, and unaware miners infected while trying to secure it for sale, the news of Diamant's kind was received with desperate relief. While the Blight itself had long since ceased to be an urgent concern, red lyrium was a problem everywhere. 

“So who do we send to the Approach?” Seeker Pentaghast asked. Commander Cullen scowled, making some irritable noises about not wanting to spare the Templars; by Alistair’s report they were needed to manage the Wardens, he said. But Leliana smiled.

“The Chargers, of course!” leaning over the War Table, she picked up an oddly-shaped figurine, a little person-shaped lump with wide horns on the top. “They have the supplies for travel, they just returned from investigating the Envy demon, and they love unusual requests like this one.”

“I would--” Alistair began, and then paused, laying a hand on Diamant again. “If you can spare another day, Diamant will have detached, and I will be free to go with the Chargers.” He managed to keep his voice even despite the way the words made him feel, but Commander Cullen only shrugged.

“I will send them their marching orders tonight so they can begin preparations. But there is no point sending them without the appropriate enchanted gear. It will take several days at a minimum to have our Arcanist do the work, and longer if we have to modify armor. And if the creatures will need to feed during the return trip, we must arrange for a cart of red lyrium to meet you in the Approach. You have time.”

**

That night, Alistair lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. He sighed, holding one of Diamant’s limbs.

 _There is no taint left in your body,_ Diamant told him, gently as it could. _And Ser Barris is waiting._

“Will it hurt?” Alistair asked, meaning the physical separation. Privately, knowing Diamant would see it anyway, Alistair thought it already hurt. Diamant was leaving for good. Alistair snorted, derisive about his own maudlin attitude, and turned his face toward the wall. “This would be easier if I still thought you were a demon. You should have been ruder. Then I wouldn’t care as much.”

Diamant just squeezed his fingers.

 _When you wake up late tomorrow, we’ll be separate again,_ Diamant told him. _This is strange for us too. We watched the Wardens for so long that we did not think joining to one would make so much of a difference. But it has._

Alistair considered asking if they could be intimate a final time, but melancholy as he was, he didn’t truly want it. He just didn’t want Diamant to leave.

 _Sleep,_ Diamant told him, and Alistair did.

**

He awoke to late afternoon sun slanting through his window and one of Diamant’s limbs curled around his cheek. He leaned into it, and then felt the weight on his chest shift in a way he wasn’t used to.

Reality crashed in all at once, and he pulled the blankets down to look at himself. Hefting Diamant aside, he stared at his own chest--and found a tidy little pink scar just below his ribs.

“So that’s it,” he breathed. “That’s all that’s left of a decade of being a Warden.” He felt dizzy but he sat up, cradling Diamant in his lap.

For a while they simply sat together, Diamant twining and untwining from around Alistair’s arms and neck.

 _A long life awaits you_ , Diamant told him, and Alistair blinked hard to keep in the tears.

Perhaps he would have sat there holding Diamant for hours, but in the end his empty belly prompted him to move. With a pang he set Diamant down onto the bedspread and dressed himself, disturbed by the way his clothes hung differently without Diamant underneath them.

He emptied his satchel onto the bed then, lifting Diamant carefully into it as he had in the boiling wasteland months ago. Then, with as much resoluteness as he could muster, he went in search of the infirmary.

Getting lost twice in the winding halls of Skyhold took the wind out of his sails, and by the time he arrived, Alistair could only grit his teeth and remind himself this had to be done. Ser Barris looked up at him with wide eyes.

“Is it time?” he asked, and Alistair thought viciously that Ser Barris had better be all that Diamant seemed to think he was.

 _Peace, Alistair,_ Diamant told him, and its voice was already so much fainter than before. Like a stray thought rather than a real presence.

Chastened, Alistair schooled his face into calmness.

“Yeah, it’s time.” Taking off the leather pack, he set it on the bed, reaching in to bring Diamant out. He hated the way Ser Barris flinched a little at the sight.

 _Remember the way you were when we first met?_ Diamant reminded Alistair. So he swallowed down all the rude things that sprang to mind, and instead sat on Ser Barris’ bedside.

“I know this is weird. It was weird for me too,” Alistair tried. “You hear a lot of strange stories about joining the Wardens--and the Templars, too, frankly--but I still didn’t think it'd end up with anything like this. It’s fine, though, I promise.”

Ser Barris gave him a shy smile at that, and reached out a tentative hand to touch Diamant. It reached out too, taking his palm in an awkward sort of handshake.

“Oh, you’re soft,” Ser Barris murmured, surprised. A long silence followed, in which Alistair understood that Barris and Diamant were speaking to one another. Finally, Barris smiled.

“I have a lot to live up to after you, it seems,” he said. “One of the Wardens who won the Battle of Denerim and saved Fereldan from the Blight!”

“I’ll never hear the end of it,” Alistair muttered, and Barris laughed.

“I know what you mean. Sometimes people thank me for my service in the Order, as though it wasn’t a mess full of failures as often as it was anything good.”

The honesty of the words caught Alistair off-guard, and he sat speechless. “Yeah,” he agreed at last. “Yeah, I....I can relate.”

Diamant poked him with one limb.

 _Go,_ it told him. _Meet this Iron Bull as you promised. Help with the preparations._

Obedient as ever, Alistair stood--but then he bent, pressing a kiss to one of the shining limbs.

“Farewell,” he told it, and tried not to let himself look at Ser Barris’ face as he left.

**

 

The Chargers turned out to be, as Leliana had politely put it, ‘characters.’ But they welcomed Alistair into their ranks with ease, and Alistair couldn’t help but think of his induction into the Wardens. Less blood and death this time around, and considerably more booze, which he counted as a plus.

The Iron Bull himself was easy company--and easy on the eyes. Even having been told that the Bull was a massive Tal-Vashoth, Alistair hadn’t been prepared for the sheer amount of naked grey biceps and chest that he was now exposed to on a daily basis. Sten had been big like the Bull, but while Sten hadn’t been shy about himself when the time came to bathe, he didn’t just wander about with his tits out day-to-day.

The excess of bare chest and the way it flustered Alistair wasn’t helped by the way the Bull flirted. It was both amiable and unsubtle, his sea-green eye following Alistair around.

By the time they reached the desert, the Bull’s offer for Alistair to join the Chargers--and the Bull himself in bed, if Alistair wanted--didn’t come as a surprise. But Alistair merely said he’d think about it. The loss of Diamant was still too new, and he knew he’d soon have to see Diamant again--or a different part of them, anyway.

Venturing out into the wasteland in enchanted armor a second time was no less surreal: the shimmer of the heat on the blasted earth, the white animal bones scattered along the bottom of the cliffs, the wind like hot breath on his face as it blew ashes and dust everywhere. Walking into the abyss with company made it seem less like walking into a different world, but even the Chargers were subdued in this evil place.

Yet when Alistair saw the lights in the distance, he felt his heart lift. He had found Diamant--or the part of it that he had known--by itself. But he had seen other lights speckled across the horizon around him, dim through the haze of heat. This time they found a whole cluster, and their limbs stretched out toward him as he approached.

“So you remember me!” Alistair called, jogging closer until he could kneel and reach into the arms of one of them. They twined eagerly around his neck and hands, curling under his armor and up against his face. They were every bit as silky as he remembered.

Even without being able to speak, he thought he could understand what they meant to say: _Welcome back. We missed you._

 


End file.
